Sands & Springs

We descended the mountains of Lincoln National Forest into the town of Alamogordo, NM to buy food. This was the first time we’d really seen evidence of people scrambling for supplies, and we saw many shelves empty of paper products, bakery & dairy items, and zero eggs. Fortunately for us, we like stuff like organic & unusual foods, so we found enough of those things to keep us fed for days. As it turns out, mainstream America doesn’t hoard them, so our aisles were somewhat still stocked. We were super conscientious about keeping our distances, and washed and sanitized after we came out of the store – a huge benefit to having our own rolling home sanitation unit.

Moving on just a ways out of town, we entered America’s newest National Park, which was formerly a National Monument, White Sands. It’s an incredibly unusual and beautiful natural feature, consisting of huge white sand dunes of gypsum sand, covering 275 square miles of desert. It’s also near a missile testing area, so I’m not sure I’d want to live next to it. The park encompasses just a portion of the dunes, but such a good portion that anyone who wants to could entirely avoid others, making social distancing easy.

We took the bikes down, and since it was perfectly flat, John could ride around with ease. We did a loop, had lunch, took a few photos and headed back out. It was incredibly lucky that we were able to see it when we did, because the gates were shut due to COVID-19 literally the next day. Not sure why, because as I mentioned earlier, this was one of those places that people could be out and not come near anyone else. Looking at the bigger picture, which we were just beginning to comprehend at that point, trying to get people to stay home and not go out would be ever so important.

Since we were moving back towards home, we tried to make the best of keeping our distance. We called ahead to Faywood Hot Springs, near Deming, NM, which we had stayed at and really enjoyed on our way east, and they were still open. We got there in the afternoon, and were amazed at how simple the trip was compared to our first foray into Google Maps weirdness, so we felt pretty good about being back. Since all New Mexico state parks had been closed for over a week now, the springs campground had more occupants, but everyone was very respectful and kept clear of each other. Also, the owner was there this time, and informed us that he’d be canceling reservations beginning Monday until further notice, and was worried about how he would be able to make ends meet with his business shut down. More and more we were observing the non-medical effects of this crazy virus.

The next morning, we headed north into the mountains, to have a look at Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument. It was partially shut down, no services, but you could still hike to the dwellings, so we did that.

It was a short 1 mile loop, the dwellings were impressive, and it was a really beautiful drive up into the mountains. We stayed the night at a little ranch at Gila Hot Springs, and got to soak in a piping hot tub there. There was a little store in this settlement, where John was able to buy a home made ice cream, and they were practicing social distancing by only allowing a few people at a time into the store. Everyone was starting to get serious about this thing, which was good to see.

We only saw a tiny portion of New Mexico on this trip, and I would really love to go back and spend more time in all parts of the state, preferably when it’s not snowing….